Act I

The Prologue of The Threepenny Opera presents Fair Day in Soho (a suburb of London), where beggars, thieves, and whores ply their trades. A ballad singer steps forward to sing a macabre ditty about Mac the Knife. Peachum, proprietor of "The Beggar"s Friend Ltd." strolls back and forth across the stage with his wife and daughter. At the close of the song. Low-dive Jenny says that she sees Mac the Knife, who disappears into the crowd.

In Scene One, it is morning in the Peachum business emporium, where the proprietor outfits beggars for their swindling careers. The scene opens with Peachum singing his morning hymn to the glory of human betrayal and deception. Peachum appeals to the audience to consider the complexities of his business: raising human sympathy often necessitates counterfeit misery, because the public has become so jaded that it's donations diminish over time...